


A Day in the Life

by PinguinoSentado



Series: Papergirl [2]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: F/F, Femslash, Fluff, Minor Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-31
Updated: 2015-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-10 15:59:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5592403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PinguinoSentado/pseuds/PinguinoSentado
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two short looks at Nora's life with Piper.</p><p>Interlude between A Light in the Wasteland and A Flicker of Doubt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Day in the Life

It was amazing how loud gunfire could be. What must have been a dozen automatic rifles firing at once would already have been enough to deafen most in close quarters, but Nora could swear the ruined buildings shouted the echoes back with twice the voice. If she did not lose her hearing during this fight, any more like it would surely force her to learn sign language.

“Nora!”

Crouching behind what was left of a wrecked schoolhouse wall, Nora could barely hear Piper over the din. She had told her not to come. The Commonwealth was a dangerous place and Piper already led a charmed life without getting into pointless firefights. Now here she was, just like she wanted, getting shot at while Nora grew old from worry.

An enormous, sickly-green figure kept Nora from turning to see what Piper wanted now. A quick burst sent it sprawling in a grotesque heap but did not discourage his friends in the slightest. More gunfire peppered her hiding place and the constant pain in her ears grew sharper.

“Nora!”

Another burst chased a Mutant Hound into the gutter, giving Nora a chance to wipe her eyes. The dust was unbelievable. Every round sent burrowing into the old walls kicked up two hundred years of dust and sent powdered masonry into the air in pale sheets. It had taken minutes to cover the whole street in a milky smokescreen. Bullets zipped through trailing spirals of gray and Super Mutants moving on the far side made weird shadows as they ran, backlit by burning cars.

One of the Super Mutant skirmishers got bold and charged headlong through the mist, roaring like a thing possessed. Three pops from behind her and it went no farther. That made one for Piper.

“NORA!”

Nora finally turned around, swearing up a storm. “What?!”

“Why do Brahmin have two heads?”

Nora stared. Her ears rang. She did not even turn as a Molotov cocktail shattered against her cover. “What?!” she shouted, sure she had misheard her.

Piper looked at her like she had grown a second head to match the irradiated cow creatures. “Why do Brahmin have two heads?” she shouted, each word unmistakably clear.

Regaining her wits for just a moment, Nora popped out of cover to stop a Super Mutant with a board from clubbing away what little of her sense remained. Settling back behind shelter, she was still at a loss for words. She shook her head and tried again.

“What do you mean?”

More shots from Piper’s pistol. “Well, they didn’t have two before, right?”

“No!”

“So,” she called, apparently having to spell it out for poor, dull-witted Nora. “Why do they have two now? I mean, nothing else grew two heads.”

Nora blinked hard. When that failed to help, she shook her head to clear the dust. The worst part was, all she could think to say was “Well, what about Radstags?”

Piper’s face lit up. “You’re right!”

Another mutant rushed Piper’s position and was stopped dead by a volley of gunfire. With an enormous grin, Piper fired through the dust to drop two more. Nora, feeling suddenly useless, poked her head out to take a few shots of her own.

A brilliant flash of light sent her sprawling against the pavement, and the deep, guttural roar of an explosion further tortured her eardrums. The blast sent dust to blanket their side of the street, obscuring anything more than a few inches from her face and sending her into a fit of mad coughing.

It took a few moments for her to find her feet. Still a deaf, blind, coughing mess, Nora stumbled about in the haze until someone caught her arm and steadied her against the side of a car. Piper’s familiar touch began brushing the white from her hair and clothes and pounding her on the back, a gesture Nora found completely unhelpful.

Her lungs finally cleared the last of the dust and a stiff breeze gave her the first clean breath since the fighting began. Even the stink of cordite and burning mutants kept her from appreciating the otherworldly stench of a badly-polluted river and two hundred years of decay.

Piper was still beaming. Her red trench coat had taken on a gray sheen but her face was as bright and beautiful as the last time they had fought Super Mutants together. It was wildly unfair.

Nora jumped as a crow the size of a dog landed happily on what remained of a dead Mutant. It too gave Nora a confused look, cocking its head before letting loose a deep caw.

“See?” Piper pointed triumphantly. “One head.”

 

Nora spooned another mouthful of eggs into her mouth. She could not believe it. Real eggs. Cooked, scrambled eggs. Not out of a can or anything.

“This is amazing,” she said for what may well have been the hundredth time since she had started eating.

Piper made a flourish, spatula in one hand, the other touching her chest in heartwarming modesty. “Thank you, thank you. Café Piper appreciates your business.”

Nat sat beside Nora on the couch, eagerly digging into her own portion. The girl had quickly become the apple of Nora’s eye, just as she was Piper’s, but that did not mean Nora was above stealing her breakfast. She was so small. She would not miss a few bites.

“I’m serious, I can’t remember the last time I had eggs,” Nora said as she shoveled more down her throat. “Eggs! This is amazing. I didn’t know you still had -”

Nora paused. She had been about to say ‘chickens.’ Her spoon, loaded to the brim with the next serving of yellow gold, now hung awkwardly between her mouth and the plate.

Piper noticed. So did Nat. Nora let the spoon falter. “What kind of eggs are these?”

“Does it matter?” Piper asked, arms now folded defensively.

“No,” Nora said quickly, spooning down another mouthful.

Piper’s eyes did not leave her. Nora took a moment to prepare her next bite. “I’m just curious,” she said, vainly trying to explain away her discomfort.

“It’s nothing bad,” Piper said dismissively.

Nora studied the eggs, poking them this way and that, trying to determine where the delicious little things had come from. It had to be somewhere horrible. Nothing natural tasted this good. Deathclaw, maybe?

Nat was grinning as Nora tried again. Just as Piper turned away, Nora blurted “Okay, how many legs?”

Piper gripped the spatula like a weapon and glared. Nora put her hands up. “You don’t have to tell me. Just ballpark it. More or less than six?”

Her glare vanished momentarily. Piper looked at the ceiling for a moment, eyes following something no one else could see.

“The fact that you need to think about it…”

“Less,” Piper said finally.

“Are you sure?”

Another pause. “What counts as a leg?”

Nora’s spoon hit the plate. “I knew it.”

Nat burst out laughing. Piper shrugged. “Well, yes or no depends on what counts as a leg. You wanted to know.”

“I did, didn’t I?”

Nat’s spoon scraped the edge of Nora’s plate. Nora swatted her hand away. “Hey! I didn’t say I wasn’t going to eat it! You’ve got your own.”

Nora did finish her meal. Wherever they had come from, they were delicious. And Nora had probably eaten worse things during her time in the Wasteland. Grilled Radroach was not exactly a delicacy.

Piper set about cleaning up the house. Nat finished her plate and went to school. Still sitting on the couch, Nora was stunned to realize that this was normal. She had someone. She had somewhere to call home. She was safe.

“What?” Piper was giving her that look.

Nora grinned. She had been doing that a lot more lately. Her feet crawled out in front of her, boots off. Her rifle lay far out of reach. With a languid, satisfied stretch, she reached her arms out to either side and let them come to rest on the couch. Air rushed from her lungs as, at long last, she let go of the breath she had been holding since she had lost her family so long ago.

“Nothing. Just you.”

**Author's Note:**

> I had some Piper fluff I needed to get out of my head and I wanted to show Piper and Nora in a good place before their story continued. Part 2, A Flicker of Doubt, is coming along nicely and should be up in about a week. Thanks again for being such a great audience.


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